Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation - Hero of the Federation

Action, Adventure, Horror, Sci-Fi

Bill Brown	Pvt. Ottis Brick (as Billy Brown)
Richard Burgi	Capt. V.J. Dax
Kelly Carlson	Pvt. Charlie Soda
Cy Carter	Pvt. Billie Otter
Tim Conlon	Fleet pilot (as Tim Conlin)
Sandrine Holt	Pvt. Jill Sandee
Bobby C. King	Smiling lieutenant (as Robby C. King)
Ed Lauter	Gen. J. G. Shepherd
J.P. Manoux	TSgt. Ari Peck
Lawrence Monoson	Lt. Pavlov Dill
Colleen Porch	Pvt. Lei Sahara
Brenda Strong	Sgt. Dede Rake

Director	Phil Tippett
Producer	Jon Davison
Writer	Edward Neumeier; ed neumeier

Allowing for all the low-budget shortcomings that plague any straight-to-video production, Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation serves up 92 minutes of passable sci-fi action. Parlaying his veteran status as an animator, special-effects wizard, and stalwart survivor of the CGI revolution, Phil Tippett (with returning screenwriter Ed Neumeier) makes a woefully uninspired directorial debut with this makeshift sequel to Paul Verhoeven's 1997 blockbuster, retaining the jarhead militarism of Robert Heinlein's original novel while serving up more bugs, an all-new cast of attractive young stars, and all-too-familiar plot elements borrowed from a dozen better movies. "Bigger is better" is out of the question under such meager budgetary circumstances, so Tippett and Neumeier compensate with gruesome bugfights and gross-out effects at regular intervals, some standard-issue nudity, and escalating paranoia (echoing Carpenter's The Thing) when a new breed of bugs use human hosts (à la The Hidden) to overtake a stranded platoon of Federation soldiers on a bug-infested planet. Relying on murky confinement to hide nondescript sets, Troopers 2 has three engaging leads in its favor: TV regular Richard Burgi is solidly cast as the titular hero (he's the military equivalent of Pitch Black's Riddick); Colleen Porch is engaging as the most sensible Federation survivor; and screen veteran Ed Lauter makes the most of his salty role as a battle-hardened general. Unfortunately, they're adrift in a knock-off sequel (shot on high-def digital video) that could never do justice to its energetic predecessor. --Jeff Shannon